Thursday, 30 April 2015

Not Roxy Music and Led Zeppelin, but two groups of people photographed in the 1970s. The photos are from the collection of Val Lovibond. Firstly, badminton players at Rhyl Leisure Centre, Grange Road:

Above: Of the people standing, Val is the 8th from the left (long dark hair, white top). Also in there are Iwan Dodd, Mary Nixon and Martin Foulkes. Who else?Click on a picture to see a bigger version.Below is a scene from a Confirmation event on Thursday 6th April 1972 at St. Thomas’ Church, Russell Road:

Val’s daughter Sharon is just about discernible, and one of the young men is Alan Evans. If you recognise anybody else please get in touch.

Monday, 27 April 2015

Rhyl has never been a Welsh town. It was never a town at all until English people decided this would be a good place to build themselves a resort. At that time, local inhabitants were not many in number and were mostly uneducated manual labourers such as farm workers and fishermen - more likely to speak Welsh than English language.

A century later, as the 1800s turned into the 1900s still more than half the population of Rhyl were able to speak Welsh because they were workers and business people who moved here from other parts of the Vale of Clwyd as the town expanded.These days around here the dominance of English language is such that many residents born in Rhyl district are unable to pronounce local place names properly because they have picked up incorrect versions directly or indirectly from incomers.

Being seven parts Welsh (and one-eighth Irish) I have tried to learn Welsh language three times and failed three times because of having no one with whom to practice. The third time, in desperation, I declared myself willing to marry any Welsh-speaking woman with nice legs.

--The illustration is a 1960s postcard showing Rhyl's promenade clock tower in its original position with Punch and Judy on your right of it. Opposite is Woolworth now B&M, followed by a garage, then a white building which was the original Pier Hotel (formerly Belvoir Hotel) and then Westminster Hotel in pale green.

Today's Daily Post ran a story by Kelly Williams about possible closure of Denbighshire council’s Hafan Deg Day Centre, Rhyl, which is part of the development that replaced our demolished War Memorial Hospital in Grange Road.This is not the first time Hafan Deg [= Fair Haven] has been threatened with the axe. Also, two other council-run day centres in the county are under review.

Elderly people can be very indoorsy and don’t necessarily want to go anywhere but those that do may have to be robbed of the choice. Let's be glad that we aren't the ones whose job is to sit in council meetings and decide where budget cuts must fall.

Last Sunday I posted this nice old image of the prom, but how old is it?

The question was: Would the nearest date be 1890, 1900 or 1910?

The answer: 1910.

You could have arrived at that conclusion in more than one way. The biggest clue is that the Pavilion wasn’t there until 1908.--

Also I posted a Rhyl scene, circa 1940.

The question was: What is the name of the avenue/road/street?

The answer: Tynewydd Road.

Here is the full picture with the caption restored:

You needed to get both answers right to score a win, and the winners are Richard & Ceri Swinney, Jane Shuttle, Dorothy Jones, The Great Gareth.

In this new series of the quiz, nobody has scored ten wins yet so there is still time for new players to catch up!

--WED 17th MAY 2017 UPDATE: In the image of the prom you can see on your right the Boer War (aka South African War) Memorial Statue that now stands in our Garden of Remembrance. Here is a closer view.

--WED 28th JUN 2017 UPDATE: The soldiers sent to fight in this war were volunteers. Lots of men from Rhyl district offered their services; only eleven were accepted initially. They are listed in 'Rhyl And Roundabout' by J.W. Jones as:Hugh Hughes, E.G. Jones, John Ellis, Norman Roberts, Vernon Jones, Hugh Wynne, Tudor Ffoulkes Hughes, Hugh O. Hughes, Roger W. Jones, Griffith Evans and Joseph Jones (the author's father). They appear in this portrait by Rhyl photographer Wills Jones.

Family history fans who can match names to faces, please get in touch.

Colin Jones / rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

--

SUN 9th JUL 2017 UPDATE: David Hughes writes to say that his grandfather, Hugh Owen Hughes, is far right in back row in the picture above and picture below which was taken a week later in Wrexham.

Friday, 24 April 2015

Q: What brings people to Rhyl? A: Sunshine. When the sun
comes out, people come in from the holiday camps and down from the villages
into Rhyl town centre and onto the seafront.

The general street market that departed recently from High Street would have brought no more shoppers than it deterred. Personally, I tended to
avoid it. [The original proposal had been for a specialised local produce and local arts
& crafts market.]

Now there is a new proposal to introduce stalls into Market
Street which bears that name not because the street used to be a market placebut
because in Victorian times it was the way from High Street to a Market Hall at back of the Town Hall.

Having stalls at back of the Town Hall, in Town Hall Square
(pictured above), is also part of the new proposal. Three or four years ago that
was tried but eventually the stalls were denied access. We seem to be going
round in circles.

A moving force behind the new proposal is Raymond Worsnop
who has shown such determination to squeeze money out of Rhyl in various ways
that he been likened to Aunty Wainwright
in Last Of The Summer Wine.

Mr. Worsnop’s company, Community Events And Market, was
registered at his home address in Marine Drive. According to Companies House, the company began life in 2011 as Rhyl Community Events And Market, and in 2013 the word Rhyl
was dropped from its name.

Thursday, 23 April 2015

This photo was taken in April this year by Yours Truly from near the Sun
Centre showing the scene across the road. The beige-and-cream house at the end of a
row was once St Thomas's College, 8 Plastirion Terrace. The 1881 Census shows that David Beatty aged 10, and his brother Charlie
aged 11 were scholars there.

David Beatty is a figure of special interest to John Williams of Rhyl
Liberty Players who is in the foreground wearing black hat and
coat. The link between David and John is through John’s mother Cicely Muriel
Beatty. David Beatty's father and Cicily's father were brothers.

David was in the school in Rhyl for a couple of years before moving on
to naval academy and embarking on an extraordinary career in the Royal Navy
that turned him into the formidable character below, Admiral of
the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO, PC.

At the time of uploading this
post, there is nothing on Internet about the surprising Beatty-Rhyl connection, so we have
a scoop here!--

Incidentally the aforementioned John Williams, pictured below, is still hoping somebody will tell us why the Rhyl streets Patagonia Avenue and Madryn Avenue are named after
places in Argentina.

--MON 17th APR 2015 UPDATE: Gareth Morris writes,
“Patagonia had a large population of Welsh speakers
who emigrated from Wales in the 1860s. Since then there have been many exchanges in both directions including their visit in 1953 to the National Eisteddfod in Rhyl. The streets in question were built in the mid 1950s and may have been named to commemorate that visit."

SAT 9th MAY 2015 UPDATE: Returning to the matter of St. Thomas's College, Rhyl, here from files of the late Glyn Rees is an advert from Rhyl Journal, June 23rd 1883.Click on it to read the small print:

Monday, 20 April 2015

More files of the late Glyn Rees were delivered last week to Jones Towers by Glyn's daughter Janine and her husband Gareth. Here from one of them is an advert dated 1879 for D. Trehearn, stationer and music publisher at Stationers' Hall, 165 and 166 Wellington Road, Rhyl.Currently Wellington Road has low numbers near High Street, but at that time it was numbered the other way round. So the position of the building in the advert is where Typhoon Thai Restaurant and Better Buys are in the two photos below:

Glyn's notes say that to the left (west) of D. Trehearn's shop was the Birmingham Arms pub. J.W. Jones' book Rhyl The Town And Its People confirms that the pub was indeed located where P.A. Thomas & Son is shown above.

Peter says:

"D. (David) Trehearn was an uncle of my grandfather P.T. (Phil) Trehearn. David was a chapel organist and first publisher of many Welsh songs, a buyer and seller of Rhyl properties, and a commissioner - a kind of councillor before councils were invented."

MON 20th FEB 2017 UPDATE: Re David Trehearn, here is the inside back cover of his publication The Album Of Rhyl Views. The date is circa 1880 by which time the business was called Trehearn & Ainsworth (still at same address).

For ‘leaving Photographers’ read ‘leading Photographers’:

Interesting to note the existence of Trehearn’s Fine Art & Fancy Depot at 61 High Street presumably owned by David as well. The business would have been on part of the site where Poundland is now - unless the street has been renumbered since then!

Last Sunday I posted a larger version of the above photograph. The question: Where was I standing?

The answer: Y Lawnt also known as The Lawn (either name was acceptable).

I was standing in Y Lawnt looking across Russell Road towards Russell Court.

--

Also, I posted a larger version of the following photo. The question: What is the name of the business underneath?

The answer: Jones & Redfearn.

Their office (estate agents) is at the town end of Russell Road:

Jones & Redfearn is one of those evocative Rhyl business names that sound like a comedy or ventriloquist act - such as Slater and Wheeler, and Rhydwen Jones & Davies.

--

You had to get both answers right to score a win, and the winners are: The Great Gareth, Jane Shuttle, Richard & Ceri Swinney, and Dorothy Jones.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recently in this blog several old posts were updated. To see them, type 2015 UPDATE in the search box at top left of the page.If you can’t see a search box it might be because you haven’t clicked away the Google banner about cookies.--

Saturday, 18 April 2015

Thinking of voting for UKIP? I would not be surprised. In the
current General Election campaign the downside of EU membership has been waved
around like a big flag, whereas the upside has hardly been mentioned.

The poorer parts of Northern Ireland, Scotland, North of England, and
Wales (including Rhyl) have benefitted from European investment. It is not “our
money anyway”, it is money we would not have received from the Westminster
government.

A vote for UKIP would be a vote for leaving the EU instead of sorting
any difficulties from within, and that would be case of throwing out the baby
with the bath water.

After the election a Tory-led government would renegotiate terms of EU
membership, and then put the revised agreement to an in-out referendum. That is a better way forward than the ways on offer from other political parties.

Monday, 13 April 2015

This card is a reproduction of a poster. The card was published, probably in the 1980s, by
Clwyd County Council. Last year while this blog was
hibernating, there was a proposal to bring a hovercraft service back to Rhyl.

In 1962 during the hovercoach trials I was 16 years old and
remember seeing crowds on the prom watching over the sea wall. I don’t remember
actually seeing the craft myself – would have been in too much of a hurry to
get round the arcades and down to the fun fair.

At 16, it is uncool to
stand in a crowd gawping at something. Right?

The trials lasted only a few weeks, and the hovercoach ran only between Rhyl and the
Wirral. Now, more than half a century later, given Rhyl's reduced status in the tourism industry, it seems doubtful that such a short route would be viable.

In Victorian times, steam
ships operated between Liverpool, Mostyn, Rhyl and Llandudno; they were owned by private
companies that survived on their own profits. These days transport companies expect huge subsidies from public bodies and would want a lot of money up front.

Not surprisingly, talks about the current proposal have
stalled on the funding issue.

Last Sunday I posted a larger version of the above picture. [It is a snapshot by the late Glyn Rees.]Near the roof of the white building, is the word ‘Restaurant’. The first part of the name is round the corner and is broken.The question: What was the restaurant’s name (a nine-letter word)?The answer: Esplanade.The ADE part was visible until recently when the building was demolished to make way for a forthcoming hotel.The Esplanade Restaurant was one of several upstairs cafés that offered a panoramic view of the seafront.The winners: Dorothy Jones, Richard & Ceri Swinney, Dilys Bagnall, Sue Handley and Jane Shuttle.Jane has edged into an overall lead with 7 wins.--[These names of businesses are added here for indexing purposes: Karma, Billy's Sports Bar, Honey Club.]--

The Arcville building, 87 Russell Road, is now Dolanog care home as shown below, photographed yesterday by Yours Truly.

--I would like to know how the school got the name Arcville. There is an Arcville Playgroup at Tynewydd Church, but I have never seen the name used anywhere outside Rhyl. Colin Jones /email:rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk
--

Tuesday, 7 April 2015

Here are two more to add to the strength of Marine Lake miniature
railway images on this blog.

Click on a picture to see a bigger version.

What strikes me about the lower image is the foliage. At
the end of 1990s during the Marine Lake development, I pointed out to a
Denbighshire county council officer that the work was destroying the heritage value of
the park. He replied, “It’s not a park, it’s water.”Colin Jones /email:rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

Sunday, 5 April 2015

The answer to last week's quiz question was published accidentally three hours before the competition closed. My apologies if any players were caught short!Now, the photo above was taken in 2008. Near the roof of the white building you will see the word ‘Restaurant’. The first part of the name is round the corner and is broken.The question: What was the restaurant’s name? If it had more than one name, the one I am looking for is a nine-letter word.You have until the end of Saturday 11th April 2015 to send your entry.

The result will be published on Sunday 12th April 2015 around Midday.

New players are always welcome. So far in this new series of the quiz nobody has scored more than six wins, so there is everything to play for!Colin Jones / email: rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

Saturday, 4 April 2015

Last Sunday I posted the above and said: Here is a Rhyl scene photographed in March 2015 by Yours Truly.The question: What is the name of the turning in which I was standing?

The answer: Lon Hafren.

(The o has a roof over it but you can’t type that. Lon Hafren is off Ffordd Elan, not far from a little group of businesses including dentists at Oasis Dental Care where I was delighted to find a notice on the door saying Open Wide.)

That’s a win for Jane Shuttle, The Great Gareth, Sue Handley and for Richard & Ceri Swinney.

In addition there were a couple of wrong answers. Doesn’t matter, it’s only a bit of fun. Keep trying!---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------AUBREY PHILLIPS / PHILIP BERNARD PRODUCTIONS

Sorry to read that Aubrey Phillips passed away on March 11th
at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd. I first met him in the very early 1960s when he was my school bus driver. Aubrey ran a
fleet of rickety coaches from the car park next to his Riverside Café in
Rhuddlan.

Aubrey was an impresario who loved to put on shows. His
pantomimes were funny and often produced on a shoestring; they had to be seen
to be believed. I was in one of them up in Gateshead with veteran comedian
Sandy Powell. My life in showbiz is a story waiting to be told.

Aubrey was a good on-stage performer with a clear, booming
voice, and he was a great audience. If Aubrey heard something that amused him,
he would let out a sudden, single hoot of a laugh, loud enough to echo round any
auditorium.

I remember visiting him in the late 1990s when he was
running Rhyl's Coliseum Theatre on the prom. It was a warm day and there were drunks sitting outside with their backs against the theatre wall.

Aubrey didn’t shout and curse at them, he took a hosepipe
and started washing everything down in a choreographed way like a piece of
on-stage business, inching ever nearer to them until they got up and walked away.
‘Never fails,’ he chuckled.

Goodbye Aubrey old chap, we never really had a stage big
enough for you.

Friday, 3 April 2015

From Val Lovibond comes this memento of an al fresco event for children of Seabank Road/Winnard Avenue area, circa 1969. The reason for the event is lost in the party of
time.

The photographer is Bob Jones of Portland Studio, 27 Bodfor Street, Rhyl. This address no longer exists. It looks to have become the back office of Williams Estates whose address is 17-19 Kinmel Street.

Val is in the happy throng, towards the far end. Her children Sharon and Stephen are somewhere in there, too. Who else? If you recognise anybody please send email to:Colin Jones / rhyl.colin.jones@live.co.uk

Thursday, 2 April 2015

This Rhyl May Day shot is from Val Lovibond.On the back it says Photograph by W. Renshaw, 117 Wellington Road, Rhyl. The address is a small shop on corner of Ffynnongroew Road, recently occupied by Sovereign Funeral Services.The photo was taken in the 1960s in Wellington Road, probably from an upstairs window of No.117; that terrace of cottages in the background is still there.On display are young ladies from the Keep Fit Club which was above Jack Hughes’ cycle shop in Bodfor Street (now flats above Thomas Estates). Val is the brunette sitting on the car chatting through a hula hoop.--